Joey Portolese

I started playing the piano when I was 9 and absolutely hated it. I would often show up at lessons not having touched a piano since the last one. At my mother's instance though, I switched teachers and stuck with it. It may have had something to do with the fact that my new piano teacher was female and gorgeous and I was male and 13, but all of the sudden I was practicing my scales along with Beethoven and Mozart up to 5 hours a day. My life became music because of Becky and I will always be grateful to her for that.
There weren't many things to keep me interested and focused on music in my hometown of Massena, NY and my attendance at summer music programs around the Northeast wasn't filling the void left by the other months of the year. No longer content with being the big fish in a small pond, I auditioned for and was accepted to the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan where I finished my last two years of high school. That experience changed my life in many ways. It was at Interlochen that I met many life-long friends and flourished in its diverse creative environment. My roommate was a creative writer; my girlfriend a dancer; I had many friends that were musicians and actors. I was so fortunate to have been exposed at such a young age to so many people that were doing their thing.
I went to college at the University of Hartford's Hartt School of Music and received a Bachelor of Music in Classical Piano and Music Theory. I started a Master's degree, but began to realize that the world of classical music was not for me. It was during the next few years that my second musical life began. I continued playing the piano, but I picked up the guitar along the way and started writing songs. Song-writing provided me with musical freedom that I was not accustomed to. It was just the breath of fresh air that I needed to rekindle my passion for music. I grew up on classic rock and despite the fact that the classical world frowned upon it, I always kept up on the pop and rock music of the times. It was now safe to embrace it all. My jazzer friends in high school used to joke with me that I was a jazz musician trapped in a classical musician's body. I'm not sure about that, but I know that my musical tastes were far more diverse than the classical world was comfortable with. Classical music gave me the discipline that every musician needs and my love of jazz, rock and pop gave me the freedom to explore and develop my talent even further. I'm grateful to have had so many positive musical experiences and influences over the years. I'd like to think that my music reflects that diversity.